Chapter 38
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Chapter 38: The Shattering Underground Tomb
“Mutants, you ask?” Fengyun Wuji’s gaze bored into Mo Li, intense and unyielding.
With a heavy sigh, Mo Li rose and beckoned to Fengyun Wuji, “Come with me.”
Mo Li cleared away a patch of soil at the wall’s edge, revealing a corroded iron plate beneath. He strained to lift the square plate, unveiling a dark underground cavern, with a narrow, spiraling stone staircase that descended into the abyss.
Fengyun Wuji stood tall, regarding the exposed cavern with astonishment. Mo Li gestured for him to follow, and he began the descent. Fengyun Wuji trailed closely, the stone steps spiraling downward in a steep, narrow path. Mo Li’s frail form teetered on the edge of collapse, as if he might plummet at any moment.
“Where are we going?” Fengyun Wuji inquired.
“Cease your questions; you shall discover the answer soon enough,” Mo Li replied coldly.
For a warrior, navigating darkness was second nature. After an indeterminate time, the elder halted on the steps.
“What’s the matter?” Fengyun Wuji asked, observing the elder.
“Below lies the resting place of sinners, a soil we dare not defile,” Mo Li stated with an air of detachment.
Fengyun Wuji fell silent, circumventing Mo Li to continue his descent.
“You are not the first to contemplate merging with this world. Observe the fate of those who came before you; it will illuminate your path,” Mo Li’s stern voice echoed from behind.
Fengyun Wuji continued downward without a backward glance. Upon reaching an arched portal, he paused. His surroundings opened up to reveal an expansive underground pit. At first glance, the sight rendered Fengyun Wuji speechless.
In the dark expanse, this was the sole place illuminated. The air was teeming with floating green will-o’-the-wisps, growing denser as they neared the ground—emanations from the bones of the deceased.
Fengyun Wuji could scarcely believe his eyes. The vast underground cavity was filled with densely packed skeletons, each covered with green spots. These remains were peculiar; their lengths significantly exceeded those of ordinary humans. Each skeleton was distinct, with most featuring a slender vertebral column extending from the spine to the level of the feet, and sharp, elongated bony spines protruding from their backs. Some had hands entirely replaced by beastly claws.
In his shock, Fengyun Wuji unconsciously extended his foot to step on the tomb’s soil, the sound of bones snapping beneath him.
These remains, numbering at least tens of thousands, each bore an expression of extreme agony. Many skulls were grotesquely deformed, unrecognizable as human.
“Behold the consequences of our kin who practiced demonic powers and assimilated with this world,” Mo Li’s distant sigh echoed from the darkness. “They died in torment, their forms unhuman.”
The crisp sound of footsteps receded into the darkness, as if Mo Li had departed.
Fengyun Wuji stooped to lift a greenish skull, which sprouted long fangs from its oral cavity and a delicate horn from its forehead. After weighing it in his hand, he gently returned the skull to the ground.
In the underground tomb, Fengyun Wuji drifted like a specter among the bones.
Near the tomb’s wall, Fengyun Wuji discovered inscriptions etched deeply into the stone, covering the entire surface:
“I would face ten thousand deaths without regret.”
“Hate! Hate! Hate! To slay the divine! To slay the demonic!”
“When shall I return to my homeland?”
“The humiliation I suffer today will be etched in my heart, to be avenged in the afterlife.”
“Descendants, should you find this message, return my bones to our homeland. I long for the fresh air, the damp soil…”
“Heaven is hateful; when can my people escape this torment? With my cultivation of demonic powers, should I one day break free, I will bathe the divine and demonic in blood!”
“Hate, hate, hate! Why cannot my people understand my painstaking intentions! To kill, to kill, to kill! To lament, to lament, to lament!”
“I willingly entered this demonic prison, enduring eternal suffering, wishing only peace for my people! Heaven protect my people!”
“Through countless calamities, I shall be reborn, return to this place, and not rest until the demonic race is extinguished!”
…
Line after line of heart-wrenching text met his eyes. After an unknown duration, when Fengyun Wuji finished reading the inscriptions, he found his clothes soaked without realizing it.
Behind a skeleton over two zhang in length, Fengyun Wuji found a line of small text: I have created the ‘Hundred Refinements Demonic Power,’ drawing endless demonic energy to form a true demonic body. Though this technique is ill-suited to our people’s physique, I am unwilling to let my efforts go to waste. The formula and verses are inscribed beneath my skeleton. Should any of my people happen upon this, exercise caution, caution! Practicing this technique will transform you into a demonic body, suffering the calamity of ten thousand demons. Reflect deeply before undertaking this practice. Should you one day escape this place, return the bones here to our homeland, and we shall rejoice in the heavens!
He turned over the skeleton, revealing a dense row of small characters on the rock below, easily overlooked if not carefully observed. Fengyun Wuji hesitated for a long while, then committed the formula to memory.
With this knowledge, Fengyun Wuji continued to examine each skeleton, finding beneath them lines of demonic power verses of varying lengths. Counting carefully, there were 365,412 skeletons in the pit, with 365,000 complete sets of verses, and 412 sets with missing text, rendering them unpracticeable.
After recording the 365,000 sets of verses, Fengyun Wuji found himself at the center of the underground pit once more. With a final look at the horrifying mutated skeletons, he bowed deeply before returning to the water prison through the passage.
Lifting the iron covering, Fengyun Wuji was shocked to see Mo Li. The old man had aged dramatically in his absence.
Once with some black hair, Mo Li’s hair was now snow-white, and the wrinkles on his face were beyond belief for a living person. His eyes were more turbid, half-hidden by the drooping skin above, and his robe was in tatters, revealing bloodied flesh with little blood still flowing.
“You didn’t return, so I replenished your true energy for you,” the old man said indifferently, as if it were a trivial matter.
Fengyun Wuji felt a pang of sorrow, having always found the old man irritating and suppressive of his nature, but now realizing he was wrong.
Fengyun Wuji rushed to Mo Li’s side, placing a palm against his back, intending to transfer the sealed true energy into the elder.
“No need!” The old man, with difficulty but determination, pushed away Fengyun Wuji’s hand, looking at him and saying, “I am about to die, an unchangeable fact. Having lived so long, I have but one unfulfilled wish that has always caused me great regret.”
“Tell me, and I will surely fulfill it,” Fengyun Wuji felt a deep sorrow, not expecting his actions to have harmed the old man, whose wounds must have been inflicted by the demons in his absence. The hatred for the demons in his heart intensified.
“After my death, if possible, return my bones to my homeland…”
Fengyun Wuji was struck to the soul, left speechless for a long while…